Paige M. Porrett, Heather Peterman, Mark Rosen, Seema Sonnad, Michael Soulen, James F. Markmann, Abraham Shaked, Emma Furth, K. Rajender Reddy, Kim Olthoff – 15 February 2006 – The potential for disease progression in patients awaiting liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has encouraged many centers to employ pre‐transplant radiofrequency ablation or chemoembolization in an attempt to control tumor burden while patients are on the wait list.

Christoph Jochum, Mechthild Beste, Volker Penndorf, Marjan Sharifi Farahani, Giuliano Testa, Silvio Nadalin, Massimo Malago, Christoph E. Broelsch, Guido Gerken – 15 February 2006 – The unique ability of the liver to regenerate quickly after resection makes living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) possible. This technique uses the unique ability of the liver to regenerate to full size after partial resection. However, the quality and course of this regeneration process in humans are still widely unexplored.

Ivo W. Graziadei, Hubert Schwaighofer, Robert Koch, Karin Nachbaur, Alfred Koenigsrainer, Raimund Margreiter, Wolfgang Vogel – 15 February 2006 – Biliary strictures are one of the most common complications following liver transplantation (LT), with an incidence of 5.8‐34%. Endoscopic techniques have been successfully used to treat biliary complications; however, the long‐term efficacy and safety of this treatment option has not yet been fully elucidated.

10 February 2006

10 February 2006

Alfredo Alberti, Silvia Boccato, Alessandro Vario, Luisa Benvegnù – 10 February 2006 – Acute hepatitis C has a high propensity to become chronic, which provides the rationale for treating patients with acute disease attempting to prevent chronicity. Almost all published studies on therapy of acute hepatitis C have been small in size, uncontrolled, and highly heterogeneous as to patient features, dose and duration of treatment, follow‐up evaluation, and criteria used to define efficacy and safety.

Gary L. Davis – 10 February 2006 – Alpha interferon therapy of chronic hepatitis C is typically accompanied by a biphasic decrease in hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA levels: an initial rapid decline during the first 24 to 48 hours, and a second more gradual decline during the following weeks. The rate of second‐phase decline correlates with ultimate response to interferon treatment. Thus, assessment of early virological response (EVR) may predict outcome.

Karen L. Lindsay – 10 February 2006 – Since the 1997 National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on management of hepatitis C there have been several important advances that significantly impact its therapy; notably the availability of sensitive, specific, and standardized assays for identifying hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in the serum, the addition of ribavirin to alpha interferon, the pegylation of alpha interferon, and the demonstration that sustained virological response (SVR) is the optimal surrogate endpoint of treatment.

10 February 2006

10 February 2006